


Hallow the Soul

by Ironlawyer



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Tony, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Near Death Experiences, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 02:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ironlawyer/pseuds/Ironlawyer
Summary: After Steve's return from the dead, Tony has never had the courage to tell him all the things he wanted to. Now, worlds away, it may be his last chance and Tony takes it.





	Hallow the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the bidder who won my MTH 2018 auction. I hope you like what I did with your prompt. I managed a hopeful ending for you! Thank you so much for all your patience and for bidding on me in the first place.
> 
> Thanks to The Casual Cheesecake for beta.

There is blood in the grass, slicking the soil to mud. It’s a good fertiliser, he thinks, maybe that's why the grass on this planet is so vivid and alive. He recalls what the Lord had said about returning to nature, like it was a mercy. Perhaps they are right, perhaps there is some mercy in this, lying amidst the grass as soft as cotton and listening to the song of unearthly birds. It's a peaceful way to die.

It's strange to be bleeding from a wound that doesn't exist. Though the natives had implied the wound was internal, the blood is seeping from his pores like sweat.

_Let your judgement be made by the wounds inside your heart_. He'd thought they were being philosophical at first, but their empathic nature read the regret and guilt and shame that came from him in waves and they called him his own prosecution. He coughs up a stringy glob of blood and chokes on the laugh that follows it.

The distant buzz of Extremis is still ever present in his mind, but it's faded, crackling, like the maddening hiss of a speaker that's been turned down so low that the noise is indecipherable. He feels the mud on his face and the buzz in his brain, thinks of Steve and feels like an idiot. Steve died without knowing how much Tony cares and now Tony will die without telling him. Tony is an idiot because he never learns from his mistakes.

The noise twists into focus and with a flickering buzz like an old school dial tone, Tony hears Steve's voice, faint, groggy and flat. Steve hasn't spoken to him with the affection of a friend since he returned. Tony hasn't apologised. Steve hasn't forgotten.

'Tony?' Steve says. 'Why are you calling me?'

He didn't mean to, not consciously at least. It's like a muscle spasm, his brain thinks it and it is so.

'What the hell are you doing, Tony?'

Tony is caught between the urge to hang up and the desperate, tightly held composure that is crumbling away at the sound of Steve's voice. He thinks if he opens his mouth he will not stop talking. There is so much he wants to say and he can't because his own body is betraying him, holding him in time like an ancient castle, too late to change, too broken to rebuild. He would give anything right now just to hear Steve say he is forgiven.

Tony hangs up.

He buries his face in the grass, feels the blades itch his nose, smells the organic must of nature. The earth shifts beneath him, moving constantly as if trying to sooth a restless infant.

For all he's tried to reject it, tried to build a shield of technology around his fleshy core, he is still human, still organic in nature. Still defined by his humanity and his mistakes and guilt are an inseparable part of that. As the ground gently, slowly embraces him, he feels human again, a kind of bodily peace he has not known since Afghanistan.

Steve is trying to call him back. He allows the line to connect because he is guilty and he owes this much to Steve, so many apologies he is not strong enough to give.

'You don't get to call me out of the blue at two am and hang up without an explanation,' Steve says.

It's a wonder they were ever friends, teammates, whatever they were. If Tony wasn't selfish and hollow and needy, he would let Steve have his righteous anger, let Steve live and thrive and remember Tony as a man who failed him, a man who lied and destroyed their friendship and never showed remorse. Never gave them the chance to be anything more.

But he can't. He is alone, face down in the soil of a world he doesn't know, which is killing him with a slow kindness and he wants, just for one last moment, to feel the comfort of home. A flesh and blood connection that he can't have. Extremis is giving him as close as he'll get.

'I'm sorry, Steve.' He doesn't say the words like they ought to sound, desperate and dying, , there's no dirt in his mouth, no rattle of unsteady breath, it's sure and strong in the way only Extremis can give him now. 'I'm so fucking sorry.' And the little shaky sound that might be strained breathing or half a sob is all him.

The taste of blood spoiled mud is real. The smell of oncoming rain. The feeling of his body shutting down and the ground melting around him. Steve's voice is real too, somewhere many worlds away, but here, in Tony's head, the connection is false. Bound by Extremis. Another result of Tony's insatiable need to be something better.

'What the hell have you done?' There is a mix of panic and anger in Steve's voice. Of course, of course Steve makes an assumption. It's funny almost, the sad sort of funny where no one's laughing but they wish they could be. Steve at once sounds angry and scared, because Tony has a history of fucking him over. Once Steve might have met an unprompted apology with _what's going on_ or _where are you_ or even _are you okay_. Things are different now. _They_ are different now.

'I guess I've fucked up.' It's the understatement of all understatements and maybe Steve won't get it, but Tony has no better words to express his regret. He's here now dying on an alien world and as much as that's a fuck up too, he doesn't care. He fucked up everything important long before today.

He rolls over and watches the fires flickering in the plum coloured sky. Their cities look like shooting stars from down here. It's a little hard to breathe now, his lungs are noticeably tight but not unbearably, like when he pushes just a little too hard at the gym. It's a strangely human feeling that he hasn't felt since getting Extremis.

'Steve?' Extremis tells him Steve is still connected, but he wants to hear him - to know it in his human heart and not just in his computer powered brain.

He slurs on the words perhaps, because Steve ask, 'Are you drunk?'

It leaves another chink in the armour, one more crack in his soul. _Tony Stark is a drunk._ It wouldn't be written on his tombstone but it’s as engraved in the minds of all who knew him.

There's no mercy in dying, no freedom from his demons that make his last moments feel worth it. He is a drunk and even now, he wants a drink.

He thinks maybe if he lets Steve down and proves him right, this will be easier for both of them. He should die like he lived. So he says _yes_, because if there was a glass of whisky here right now, he'd drink it.

There is a long silence then. Tony imagines Steve alone in his apartment, burning with rage and maybe that's why Tony called him in the first place. He isn't worth Steve's love and he needs that reminder to make dying easier.

The flickering lights of the distant alien metropolis are blurry now. He thinks for a moment that it’s a sign he's losing consciousness, before he feels the tears slide down his cheeks.

His body will waste away here, only ever seen by others who are destined to die. He recalls the day they laid Steve to rest, the outpouring of love and judgement and what it felt like to see how thoroughly he'd fucked up.

Steve is still silent, but he's stayed on the line, waiting for Tony to condemn himself further, perhaps.

Tony will oblige, because everything is playing in his head like a symphony of regret, reminding him that he deserves Steve's anger.

'You know when you died, Steve?' Tony's voice is husky and he tells himself it must be something in the alien air. 'I was kind of a mess. You've seen some of the footage, I bet. A lot of people thought I was drinking again, and god knows I wanted to. I didn't though. I thought...' his voice breaks on a cough, a trickle of blood and the memory of Steve's body. It hurts to think of even now, with Steve alive and well on the other end of the line. 'Even though I'd fucked everything up and you died hating me, I thought that as long as I didn't take a drink, I could still pretend you'd be proud of me.'

It was the delusion he'd needed to stay alive. Let it crumble now, let Steve shatter it apart and show him just how stupid he was.

He descends into sobbing. Steve doesn't need to say anything, and he doesn't.

Tony's airways are getting clogged with blood and snot and he gags on it, chokes and sobs until he can manage more words. 'If I die, would you miss me?' He waits for Steve to speak this time.

'Tony,' Steve's voice is tight and slow, like he's speaking to a spooked civilian. 'Where are you?'

'Would you miss me, Steve?' he asks again. He doesn't want to know, really, but he needs to.

'Of course I would.'

It doesn't comfort him like he'd hoped it would. His death won't ease Steve's pain. You can hate someone and love them at the same time. You can miss someone who was a toxin in your life.

'I'm sorry, Steve,' Tony says again. It won't work but there are no better words for it.

'What for?' Tight, urgent. Tony pictures the words through tightly clenched teeth.

'Everything. For being so goddamn stupid. For ruining everything. For getting you killed.'

'Why are you telling me this now, Tony, what the hell is going on?' Tony used to think he was good at reading Steve, but perhaps he never was, perhaps he saw what Steve was willing to show him, because he's getting nothing now.

But Steve is willing to listen. So Tony talks.

'We never really talked after you came back, did we Steve? I'm kind of a coward. Do you want to know how many times I've stood on your doorstep late at night and walked away without knocking? Guess I kind of hoped I wouldn't have to. That I could project hard enough and you'd just know I was there, crawling, waiting for you to forgive me and I wouldn't have to say anything, because you would just know.'

He laughs and even though Extremis it sounds sad and broken.

'I wanted to say sorry so fucking bad, but I could never manage it. Not to your face. Not to a you who could tell me where to shove those good fucking intentions.'

He's tired now. Everything aches but none of it hurts as much as Steve's silence does.

He is crying. Eyes clenched shut but the tears break free anyway, like they did the last time he spoke so honestly to Steve. To Steve's body.

He continues to talk, can't stop really, the string has been tugged and he's unravelling like a poorly sewn sweater. 'All I want now is for you to know how sorry I am. How I wish things could have been different. I don't need you to forgive me, I don't even think that's really possible, I just need you to know. God, Steve, I don't want all the things I should have told you to die with me.'

He pauses for breath and Steve cuts in. 'Then don't let them. If there are things you want to say, then come say them to my face.'

'I can't.'

There's a long growling sigh, and a part of Tony is relieved to recognise the frustration, half of their relationship was built on it. 'Tony please,' Steve says, 'I just want to know if you're safe.'

Tony hasn't been safe in a long time, he's always been balanced on a cliff edge and waiting to be pushed, to fall, to pretend it was inevitable.

'Not safe, exactly,' Tony says with a hopeless crack of laughter.

'Are you...' Steve stops, pauses, starts over. 'Don't do anything stupid, Tony, please.' Tony recognises fear in the record pin stagger of Steve's voice. Tony has done a million stupid things in his life, dying will be far from the stupidest. But Steve thinks he has a choice, that he is standing on that cliff edge now and waiting to jump. Steve always sees choices where there are none. No compromises, you just have to try harder and a solution will come.

Tony thinks if he were a braver man, Steve’s assumption would be right.

There were times when the mess was unfolding that he crumbled, he'd stood on the balcony of his multi million dollar penthouse and wondered if Extremis would let him die if he told it to. There were many more times after the war was over. After Steve.

He wonders if he's always been missing a piece of this puzzle. If there was something, some word or scenario, that could wedge in that empty spot and hit his self destruction switch, or if he is too conceited to ever actually kill himself. He likes to pretend the world needs Iron Man, even if it would be better off without Tony Stark.

If he's truthful, he wants to die a hero's death. This is not that. But he was never brave enough for Steve's option either.

'It's a bit late for that, Steve. I think when I was born someone wrote "you will make stupid choices" and stuck it in my fortune cookie.' Like he can bring levity to this. Steve doesn't laugh now but someday he will. Laugh. Cry. Remember how Tony was a friend once and laugh some more because it’s only when you can finally rest that you look back and realise how much the sack of sand on your shoulders was weighing you down.

'Christ, Tony, don't you fucking do this to me,' Steve is speaking with a frantic, breathless fury, hissing with it like there's fire in his mouth and he needs to spit the words out to extinguish it. 'Don't you fucking dare, you selfish bastard. If you want to show me how sorry you are, you need to be around to do it. You come here and you look me in the eye and show me what an apology means to you. I will never forgive you if you die without giving me that much.'

It’s messy and painful and not how it was meant to be. Tony was stupid to think they could ever find closure like this. Selfish. Even in his dying moments.

He thinks maybe if he had the choice now, he would choose to live. To give Steve all he deserves. He doesn't have that choice though. He should hang up, leave it here and let Steve hate him.

The gurgling black cauldron of stupid that pulls the strings in the recesses of his mind still needs to say his dying words of choice. They stutter and die before the rest of him does._ I love you, Steve, and I always have._ Even now, Tony is a coward.

'God. Fuck. Steve.' Tony screams. All his despair, all his physical pain, all the wretched melting pot of every emotional response he has suppressed over the last two years. And when he stops, Steve is there calling his name over and over, because he thinks he's listening to his old friend kill himself. Maybe he's not, but he is listening to his old friend die.

'I'm a fucking coward, Steve.' Breathless and broken, he finds room for the words, because he needs Steve to know he's not dead yet. 'I never should have called you. I'm not going to kill myself, I promise.' Maybe Steve doesn't need to know the rest of it. Maybe Tony can slip away into obscurity and no one need know about his last moments, because he could be alive out there, a hermit living the peaceful life in the mountains of an alien planet somewhere. It doesn't work like that though.

Steve is breathless on the line now. 'What's going on, Tony? Can you be real with me for just two damn seconds?'

Yet again, Tony must face the situation he has orchestrated.

In spite of himself, Tony laughs. 'Real. Yeah.' He isn't sure what real is anymore. Maybe he never was. Maybe he's spent so much of his life living in a metal shell that he's forgotten what it's like to be human. Or he wishes that were the case. He knows the words _I'm sorry_ we're never the ones he was supposed to be saying.

'I guess the truth is, I've always tried to do what I thought was right, but when you died I realised how fucking stupid I'd been. I realised none of it was worth losing you for. And now I'm stuck out here and this fucking planet is killing me and I just need to tell you - I love you, Steve. I fucking love you.'

Steve is as silent as he was that day on the hellicarrier. Tony babbles on to fill the void of fear that Steve's silence carries. 'I missed you so fucking much, Steve. I didn't feel alive when you weren't. I was living on autopilot, people blamed me, hated me, but never as much as I blamed or hated myself. When I sat down next to your body, saw you so lifeless and empty, I realised I love you. I guess I've always loved you.' He'd tuned it out, found other people to love, to fuck, to fill the emptiness in him that always wanted more from people. More from Steve.

He stops to breathe, to release the tension that's been growing tighter and heavier in his chest. He's bleeding more sluggishly now and the pain is distant and soft edged.

Every emotion has been stamped out of him, like a whirlwind of wild horses have trampled through his brain, leaving behind splattered mud and chaos. There is an after-storm calm in him, and he feels like he could rest his head in the pillowy grass and sleep the rest of eternity away.

He has said all he needs to say. However Steve responds now, gentle rejection, complete disgust, laughter, it's of no consequence.

Tony rests. He breathes the damp lilac air, twirls his fingers through the grass and listens to Steve breathing down the line.

'I don't know what you expect me to say, Tony,' Steve says as the silence drags. There's a hint of loosely held anger in his voice and Tony finds he resents how it disturbs his newfound sense of acceptance. He wants to imagine that Steve's reaction doesn't matter, that now the words are out there, he can die in peace.

'Just tell me what you're thinking.' He still likes the sound of Steve's voice. Even in anger or sadness, it sings to him, reminds him that Steve is alive once more. If he can't die at peace he'd like to die remembering that.

'I'm thinking...' Steve hesitated. 'I'm thinking this is a mess,' Steve says. 'Now, after everything, you call me up in the middle of the night and tell me you're dying and you're in love with me. You've had months to say something to me, anything, and you say this and now? Why?'

'Closure, I guess. I know what it's like to lose you without ever having a goodbye.'

Steve hisses a curse, sharp and under his breath, like he's taken a blow to the abdomen. 'You get under my skin like no one else can, you know that, Tony?'

'Like a parasite.' Tony laughs

'That's not what I meant.'

'What did you mean then?'

'Tell me where you are,' Steve says as if it's an answer. 'Tell me what the hell is going on? I'm not going to let you die without a fight.' The pitiful, lonely, delusional part of Tony pictures Steve racing across the country, the planet, the universe, to get to him on time. He imagines Steve here touching his face, holding his hand, not letting go until his body's gone cold.

But Steve has a saviour complex. It's not concern for Tony because he is Tony, it's concern for a life, a person in pain who Steve feels responsible for. Tony has been unmoored from Steve's life, drifted to the distance of stranger and civilian.

'Space,' Tony says and realises he has no intention of elaborating, because as much as he likes the fantasy of Steve here with him, comforting him, easing him into his last sorry moments, it's a fantasy.

'You're not even going to fight?'

'I've had just about all the fighting I can take, Steve. I don't have anything left to give.'

'Fuck you!' Steve shouts with a real rage now, a power that makes Tony flinch, even all these worlds away. 'Fuck you, Tony. You think you get to call me up with a love confession then just roll over and die? You're always looking for the easy solution. You think you're generous, giving me closure. Well fuck you, you can't heal all wounds with I love yous. If you die now, you'll be dead and there will be no fixing us because you'll be gone. You say you love me? Then for fuck sake _live_. Because I love you too and I can't love a dead man.'

'You never said.' It's a ridiculous thing to say, because Tony never said either, but it's all he can think of. It stings a little to know they've been orbiting each other like this for who knows how long. Heroes supposedly, and yet never quite brave enough to be people.

'Because I'm a mess. Goddammit. We're a mess. I fucking love you, Tony, and that's why I can hate you so much. I hated what you did to us, I hated that you made us fight on opposite sides. I hated that I couldn't stand with you. I hated that I couldn't love you and I hated that I loved you anyway. '

'Fuck, I'm such an idiot, Steve. I just wish... I wish you were here.' Tony breaks into a wretched fit of hacking coughs, strings of blood dribbling down his chin and catching in his beard. In spite of this, he feels a hit of renewed energy, like he's been jabbed with an adrenaline shot. The trickling blood flows to a stop like a leak that's been plugged. He looks down at the blood quickly drying, coating his skin like a fine coat of paint and it's like all the toxicity has been bled out of him. He is new somehow, clinging to the lifeline of reciprocation, jittery with an urgency to get up and move, to go home, to find Steve and kiss him and fuck him as he's never quite dared to imagine. It's a dream now, a wish, but no longer a fantasy.

The world melts away as the ground shifts once more. Taking him deeper, he thinks at first, until it bulges and burps and pushes him away with a physical force that feels almost human. The pillowy grass becomes brittle and harsh, no longer a comfort. He finds himself on his feet, shaking slightly but undamaged, whole. Alive.

There's a warmth emanating from the ground now, burning the soles of his feet with the sense that he no longer belongs. He feels the undersheath shivering beneath his skin, calling to be called upon.

Steve and he are standing on uneven ground, sticky with mud and covered in the gaping wounds they have given each other. By some miracle, there is still something holding them together, some indefinable link that pulls them back with a snap every time. Maybe they will hurt each other again soon enough, maybe they will live forever in this back and forth of pain and love and betrayal and forgiveness. For the first time in a long time, Tony finds he wants to live to find out.

'I'm going to come get you,' Steve says.

'I think... I think I'd like that.'


End file.
